LEADERSHIP OR BUREAUCRACY?
The explosive pressures building up from below after the elections can be seen both in the demonstrations which were mounted against councillors in many towns before the elections, and in the near-riots and victimisation of supporters of minority parties by women supporting ZANU(PF).
These demonstrators vented their frustration about their poor prospects and lack of housing on supporters of the minority parties, but also, in some cases, on well-to-do ZANU(PF) members.
The violence was fuelled particularly by the lack of improvement in their lives experienced by ZANU(PF) women: “There is a shortage of houses, why should they stay in houses when we don’t have houses. Their houses will be distributed to party members by the party.”
At first the ZANU(PF) leadership encouraged these actions, but soon feared they would escalate out of control and even take a clearer class direction. Appeals for restraint by leaders such as Shamuyarira and Nyagumbo had no effect, however, and in the end the reprisals were stopped only by the intervention of Mugabe himself.
Pressures accumulating
All the pressures of Zimbabwean society are now accumulating at the top. The inadequacies of the leadership will now be seen more clearly as the workers, youth and peasantry see no solution to their urgent problems. Among the most advanced workers there will be a search for the way out of the seizing up of the Zimbabwean revolution.
Those who started off as the leadership of a guerilla movement, forced to live in modest conditions and often sharing the dangers of war are now the well-to-do politicians living in luxury and fawned on by the capitalists. Nothing brings this out better than the financial contributions these leaders make to the party.
Immediately after independence party leaders used to contribute $500 a month to the party and in return receive an allowance, but now Ministers earning up to $4,330 a mouth are only contributing $50 a month.
The outlook of this leadership now reflects its material position of wealth, high salaries, farm ownership and income from businesses. The common complaint among workers is that the leaders preach socialism in the day but practice capitalism at night.
These leaders are increasingly remote from the workers and peasants. Many of them feel closer to the capitalists and wealthy whites in the suburbs where they live, than with the masses. Instead of closing the gap between themselves and the masses, they are increasing their privileges. Many are permanently in debt to the building societies and the banks.
With their privileged position this layer is unable to make a break with capitalist policies. Neither can they mobilise the workers to carry out the transformation of society. They show no real interest in the problems of the workers and peasants. Rather their coming to power has been accompanied by the rise of corruption and nepotism.
The Department of Labour officials are a terrible example of the general contempt and hostility of the state bureaucracy towards the masses. Instead of attempting to solve the problems of workers during disputes, they often call the police in to arrest them.
Within a two-year period, no less than four chief industrial relations officers, one deputy chief, and 42 industrial relations officers resigned to take up positions in private companies. As Shava, the Minister of Labour, was forced to state after these revelations: “One remains wondering whether such officers are not actually agents of the private sector from the outset.”
Evidence has come to light of industrial relations officers leaking confidential information to the capitalists, socialising with management, and being unwilling to speak to the workers. The new labour law gives no powers to the workers to expose and correct such pro-capitalist activities.
Equally in the Department of Land and Resettlement, leaders of the co-operatives complain of rudeness and pro-capitalist policies.
With these state policies it is not surprising that the capitalist organisations have no similar complaints!
What is taking place in Zimbabwe is more than the transformation of the guerilla leadership and educated strata into a privileged bureaucracy. The top leadership is more than privileged and wealthy. Through its growing ownership of farms and involvement in business, it is becoming a junior partner of the big capitalists, hanging onto the coattails of the monopoly businessmen and landowners.
In August 1984 the Second Congress of ZANU(PF) adopted a Code of Conduct, supposedly aimed against capitalist elements in the party. Since that time, the Code has hardly even been mentioned, let alone implemented. Moreover the method of investigation it proposed, involving secret reports and enquiries, is diametrically opposed to what workers want, which is open discussion and action to discipline those seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of the masses.
The Code of Conduct was not implemented in the selection of candidates for the 1985 elections at local or national level. Instead, among the ZANU(PF) candidates for election were many well-known owners of big farms and transport companies. They had been put forward to the districts and branches as candidates approved of by the central party leadership. Now in Parliament these elements have an unparalleled opportunity for enriching themselves, while the rank and file suffer unemployment and stagnating poverty incomes.
The Code of Conduct is the only concession that has been made to control the growing wealth of the party elite. The idea was that the party top leaders would discipline themselves by getting rid of their farms and companies.
But now it is reported that Cabinet ministers and army officers are refusing even to answer questions on their ownership of farms, transport companies, and firms.
In reality, after five years of independence marked by growing corruption in the party and civil service, the workers are now well aware that they have no control over their political representatives. This feeling is now noticeable right down to the cell level.
A one-party dictatorship?
The fundamental force behind the drive towards a one-party dictatorship is the crisis of the system which has failed to deliver the goods: capitalism. The lack of jobs, land, houses, and decent wages—which capitalism cannot provide—is building up politically explosive material.
Faced with these pressures from below which cannot be met, the leadership is balancing between the interests of the workers and peasants and the capitalists. It hopes to maintain the illusion that it gives equal attention to the interests of the exploited and the exploiters.
If capitalism was a growing, wealth-creating system, the demands of the workers and peasants could at least partially be met. Social benefits could be expanded and the explosive material defused. With the masses seeing the prospect of satisfying their basic demands within the present system, the government could tolerate a variety of political opinions without fear of weakening its hold on power.
Bonapartism
But capitalism in the colonial world has been unable to develop the productive forces necessary to provide for the needs of the people. Since independence in Zimbabwe there has been hardly any significant advance in production.
Instead of reorganising production on the basis of state ownership of the banks, mines, big farms and factories, the ZANU(PF) leadership has defended capitalism. The weak productive base has been further weakened by factory closures and the stagnation of the world market.
The ZANU(PF) leadership is aware that the crisis of capitalism is kindling a political explosion. It fears that the frustrated hopes of the masses could turn towards opposition parties. Or more likely, towards internal rank and file opposition movements.
lt is these pressures which are forcing the leadership to balance between the monopolies and strengthen the personal rule of Mugabe—all ingredients which make up Bonapartism in Zimbabwe.
The agro-industrial wage dispute shows how, at times, the leadership is forced to make gestures towards satisfying the demands of the workers.
Yet, more importantly, the conflicting pressures are forcing Mugabe further along the anti-democratic path. Political opposition is repressed. The state apparatus is being consolidated not so much against the threats from South Africa, but against the future internal opposition of the workers and peasants.
All these trends taken together are what add up to the one-party dictatorship. The leadership is driven ahead along this road to secure itself in power mainly against the coming socialist opposition. At the same time it hopes that the added state powers will help it to control different factions and Shona tribal rivalries which are festering in the party.
Mugabe presents the one-party state as a solution to the national division of the country. It is this aspect of the propaganda which gains some support for the one-party state campaign. The illusion is being peddled that the problems of national disunity and tribalism can be solved by a one-party state.
The prospect of a one-party dictatorship has been strengthened by the collapse of the minority parties – the UANC and ZANU(Sithole). ZANU(PF) rallies regularly have ‘confessions’ by defectors from other parties. Many of these had high positions in their former parties. The sense of demoralisation in these parties is deepened by the indefinite detention of many party activists.
This collapse, taken together with the deal being negotiated with ZAPU, concentrates all the contradictions between the classes within the ruling party. Already the intense party loyalty being drummed into the rank and file is evidence of inner party tensions.
As the party leadership consolidates its wealth and position and the party forces more diverse elements and members of minority parties into its ranks, so party democracy is more and more trampled on.
Party leaders accuse new recruits to the party of being “just opportunists, hoping to get a job after joining the party.” (Ndlovu in Herald, 7 August 1985) In Matabeleland and elsewhere there is, indeed, this ‘false type’ of membership.
But the ZANU(PF) leaders use this fact to falsely justify suppression of party democracy. They are hostile to questions being raised by the rank and file, and direct the party apparatus to suppress all inner-party opposition.
The detention in March 1985 of Marxists who were members of ZANU(PF) and the official trade unions was only the most extreme form of repression of genuine socialist views within the party.
The workers’ experience is that complaints are not taken up by the leadership. The party is ruthlessly directed from above, and meetings are conducted in the form of rallies rather than forums for political discussion.
All potential sources of power are being removed from the lower levels or the party—the cells, branches, districts and regions—and entrenched at the top. A number of decisions have been taken which reinforce the personal position of Mugabe in the party and government. The new political bureau is handpicked by him and it is this same bureau which is meant to enforce party control over the Cabinet.
Emergence of a left wing?
With the widening gulf between leaders and members, the objective conditions are ripening for the emergence of a left wing in the party. Such a grouping would be critical of the compromises being made and look towards the rank and file for support.
The workers are keenly aware of the left statements occasionally made by individual leaders. The criticism by Ushewokunze of the Director of Railways who was closely associated with Mugabe was widely discussed. Many, even among the most politically advanced will hope that the struggle for socialist policies would he made easier by a ‘left’ leader endorsing their position.
Comparison is sometimes made with the labour movement in other countries, particularly Europe, which has thrown up leaders within the mass labour parties to the left of the official leadership. These lefts have campaigned on elements of socialist policies: for greater controls over multinationals, in support of specific strikes, against nuclear weapons, etc.
These left leaders have stopped short of adopting Marxist policies and methods and therefore, under all the pressures of capitalist society, have bent and retreated. But they have considerable support among the activists and evoke a tremendous echo among the workers when they move into struggle.
The processes are very different in Zimbabwe. In Europe the labour movement has been built by the working class on the foundation of democratic traditions in the unions and local party bodies. Right-wing leaders use all manner of methods to try to suppress socialist opposition—including expulsions of Marxist but they cannot completely rule out vigorous debate and the expression of diverse opinions among the rank and file. It is upon this democratic base that the left leaders rest.
ln Zimbabwe the party is fundamentally an organ of the bureaucratic elite reinforced by state power, which deals ruthlessly with ‘dissident’ opinions. Potential left leaders have, moreover, no links to the rank-and-file workers or even to the peasant cooperatives. They would have no home base (apart from their tribal and regional support) from which to put forward socialist policies.
Any potential left leaders would also be state functionaries with all the privileges of a bureaucratic elite.
Any persistent left criticism made by a member of this elite would soon bring into question his salary, mortgage on the house, car, ability to pay off loans on the farm, etc. His personal security would also be at stake.
But criticism of different aspects of the compromise with capitalism are made by leaders every so often. Such criticism takes the form of demagogic statements made from above, not linked to the rank and file. These critics are part of an elite which is balancing fundamentally on a peasant base and which is hostile even to the idea of the workers controlling the party.
The speeches and actions of Ushewokunze and Tekere show the limitations of these potential ‘lefts’.
Ushewokunze, a doctor with substantial landowning interests in Bulawayo, has called for the formation of Marxist study circles. But he was nowhere to he found when workers were suppressed for setting up genuine study circles to study ZANU(PF) policies and Marxism.
As the grand master of the left phrase, he has not bothered to link up in any way with the critical rank and file of the party.
Tekere, a maverick whom (at times) workers have hoped to see expose the privileges of the new elite, is another left phrase-monger.
After announcing the Zimbabwean revolution had been hijacked by the elite, he returned to his Manica base. Instead of supporting the demands of the peasantry for land however, he announced he would personally ‘deal with’ squatters on unoccupied ‘white’ land.
These ‘squatters’ are the very same peasants who gave everything to the cause of the guerilla struggle. As ZAPU(PF) supporters they suffered the horrors of the war in the east , but they fled from Tekere when he came to ‘investigate’ complaints of squatting. His statements against the ‘squatters’ now have the enthusiastic approval of the most reactionary white members of parliament!
Again, for a moment, he gained some respect from workers for his opposition to party violence, and his defence of the right of ZAPU to campaign in Mutare. This vanished, however, within two days when he announced he would go, gun in hand, to shoot any ‘birds’ in Matabeleland opposing the one-party state.
The workers can expect nothing from these elements who change their tune from day to day. These opportunists are not prepared in any way to support the struggle for party democracy and socialist policies in a party ruthlessly ruled from above.
Their phrase-mongering is linked to the jockeying for power between the different regional bases of ZANU(PF). These regions are in turn the sub-tribal areas of Shona-speaking people.
The party leadership is ‘balanced’ to provide tribal representation according to the different dialects: Zezuru, Manyika, and Karanga. The struggles at the top, although conducted in the language of socialism and radical policies, are fundamentally about the alignment of different political overlords.
ln the pubs and hotel bars, the political ‘struggles’ of the petty-bourgeois elite are discussed a they really are—in the language of tribalism.
The growing divisions between the masses and the political elite will inevitably lead to a working-class opposition movement to this leadership—of employed workers, youth, women and peasants also.
The leadership is acutely aware of discontent over jobs, wages, and land. The recent wage increases before the 1985 elections of 5 to 15 per cent, and the increase of agri-business wages, show that attempts are being made to hold the support of the workers.
Left opposition in ZANU
Gestures such as these can delay, but not stop, the growth of a movement of opposition. As Marxism has explained, reforms within capitalism, particularly in the colonial world, are tenuous and can soon be reversed. The approaching world recession will further limit gestures of this kind, as the profits of the employers decline while prices continue to increase for the workers+
The pressures from capitalism in decline — joblessness, inflation, low wages, and the lack of a movement on the land, will eventually force the workers and peasants into action against their leadership.
With their growing wealth and privilege, the political elite is vulnerable to the charge that they are parasitic—defending privileges, but unable to contribute to the building of the economy or political unity of the masses.
This opposition will develop unevenly. Because of the repression and tight control within the party, it is unlikely to rise up significantly within the party cells in the first instance.
Yet in time—as opposition to the pro-capitalist policies of the party leadership takes root among the youth, in the trade unions, among women, and among peasants—it will find its mass reflection in the party also.
The party leadership will try through bureaucratic and police means to suppress this opposition. And the so-called ‘lefts’ in the bureaucracy will add their weight to this repression.
But, with solid working-class roots, socialist opposition in the party will cut across the suppression, and insist on expressing itself.
When the socialist movement finally gains support nationally, as it will, potential left leaders in the bureaucracy will be faced with a personal challenge. Although they will ruthlessly defend the party establishment in the beginning, they will also calculate that such a movement could open the road to their individual advance.
Eventually we will see such opportunistic left leaders jumping on to a socialist rank and file movement in the jockeying for power.
But, in the period immediately ahead, the real question is the perspectives for the emergence of opposition to the capitalist policies of the party leadership in working-class channels outside the party framework itself.
The youth
It is among the youth that a socialist opposition is most likely first to develop. But there are definite layers of youth and there will be an uneven response to the genuine ideas of Marxism.
Among the unemployed youth, hundreds of thousands are drafted into the party organisations and used as the foot soldiers of the leadership. The youth in the Youth Brigades and Youth League are strongly attracted to the official ideas of ‘socialism’, but they want the leadership to go further.
The school youth show the greatest eagerness to absorb Marxist ideas. This democratic socialist opposition in embryo is already feared by the party bureaucracy, which has tried to limit political discussion in the schools. They are also more likely to emerge as an opposition because they resent the intimidation of the party youth who insist on them turning out to their meetings.
The youth have gained most from the early period of reforms as there has been a massive expansion in secondary education. But these advances in culture, and openings to the world of ideas and science, coupled with the inability of school-leavers to get jobs, have led to a critical assessment of the rampant careerism of the privileged bureaucracy.
The initial spurt ahead in education has now been followed by cuts, and this has resulted in declining standards, particularly in O-levels. The O-level results in 1985 were shocking. The pass rate declined from 43% in 1983 to 27% in 1985. Only 20% of the 73,000 candidates who sat for English passed. (Guardian, 21 October 1985) The shortage of suitable reading material has been blamed, but undoubtedly the problem is also the quality or teaching as youth show a great interest in learning English.
The mood in the schools has changed from one of optimism, progress, and sacrifice to one of growing disillusionment both among pupils and teachers. This mood has been partly brought about by the rapid promotion of teachers to high-paid jobs. On the other hand there is the lack of job opportunities for school leavers. What are we studying for? ask the students. For the first time the problem of discipline is arising in the schools.
The lack of jobs for well-educated youth is a time-bomb ticking away under the desks of the bureaucracy. The figures on the lack of jobs are quite staggering—only 34,000 jobs have been created since independence, while about 170,000 school-leavers are joining the workforce every year.
In the early years of independence, this youth unemployment was partially disguised by the economic upturn and the whites leaving the civil service, which created a number of opportunities for well-paid employment. Now apprenticeships are rare, and the monetarist policies of the government have led to a freeze on civil service appointments.
Some black bankers have even called for the firing of one-third of the civil servants as a way of reducing the budget deficit. (Dr Julius Makoni, Herald, 10 August 1985)
The school-leavers are now ‘all dressed up with nowhere to go’. Many girls despair of getting jobs and marry early, while the boys search eagerly for a while and then, disillusioned, become dependent on the family.
At times the youth suffer from political instability. Without the strict discipline of struggle, they can become demoralised through prolonged joblessness, or seduced by the individual opportunities for advancement which still remain.
The disillusionment of the children of the revolution is a severe warning to the reformist leadership. But from the point of view of Marxism it is an indication that the objective conditions are ripening for a turn towards revolutionary ideas among broad sections of the youth.
The lack of jobs for school-leavers will help to break down the gap which is dividing the school youth from the mass of unemployed youth.
The socialist youth will have to learn the lessons of Marxism internationally to be able to make a real contribution to the development of Marxism in Zimbabwe. They will have to make a serious study of theory and of the perspectives for the Southern African and world revolution.
They will have to orient consciously towards the working-class—towards the workers’ committees and unions, and towards the working masses in ZANU(PF) and the Youth Brigades. They will need to take up the problems of the mass of the youth and discuss with them a socialist way forward.
It is only in this way that a conscious socialist opposition will get the ear of the struggling youth and workers, and gain a base among the tens of thousands of party youth.